This technique can help create soft edges of the frame, or can sometimes substitute for a shallow focus effect. Use this technique with subtlety or intensity, depending on your needs. It can be used to great success on such diverse subjects as a close up of a face or on a wide scenic shot. In a nutshell, you'll duplicate the original clip, mask one of the shots, and blur out the other. When the final composite is seen, it can appear as though the image has more of a shallow focus than the original.

1. Place a video clip on V1 in the Timeline.

2. From the RT pop up menu in the Timeline, choose Safe RT instead of Unlimited RT. This is for users of Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 as our effect may not show up correctly until final rendering when Unlimited RT is chosen instead from this menu. This is not with all effects, but it is with this particular case.

3. Hold down Shift and Option keys together, then click drag on the clip and drag it up to V2. This will duplicate the clip directly above the original.

4. Select the top clip in the Timeline by clicking on it once (if its not still selected from the previous step). Go to the Sequence menu > Solo Selected Items (or press Control/S). This turns "off" the visibility of the bottom clip, leaving "on" the selected top clip. This will help us to see and position the mask we are about to create on this top clip.

Notice how the bottom clip (on V1) seems "dimmed" out in the Timeline. This indicates it is not currently visible.

Tip: Use Solo Items any time you want to turn off any clip(s) above or below the selected track. As you may know, turning off visibility for an entire track with the green Timeline buttons would cause other items in the Timeline to become un-rendered. Instead, if you only turn on and off selected clips you can keep from disturbing other parts of the Timeline.

5. With the top clip still selected, go to the Effects menu > Video Filters > Matte > Mask Shape. In this example Mask Shape is used, but you could also use the filter Soft Edges except that its overall shape is more limited than the Mask Shape filter.

6. If you chose Mask Shape, also add the filter Mask Feather to customize the softness of the edge of the mask. Go to Effects > Video Filters > Matte > Mask Feather.

7. Open the top clip into the Viewer by double clicking and select the Filters tab. Change the shape and size of the Mask Shape to Oval and change the horizontal and vertical scale until it roughly frames the part of the image to remain in focus. Re-center the mask using the Center crosshair found in this filter.

On the Mask Feather filter, initially set it to about 30 to create a soft drop off from the image.

In the Canvas, the image is temporarily framed by a black background, but this will be changed next.

Next you'll reverse the visibility of the clips in the Timeline, turning off the top clip so you can apply a blur effect to the bottom clip and see its results in the Canvas.

8. Select the bottom clip in the Timeline and press Control/S (solo items) to turn off the top clip and turn on the bottom clip. In the Timeline, the clips should now look like this:

In the Canvas you'll now see the original un-affected image of the bottom clip.

9. With the V1 (bottom) clip still selected, go to the Effects menu > Video Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

10. Open the bottom clip into the Viewer by double-clicking. Select the Filters tab and increase the amount of blur to around 10 to start. You can fine-tune this amount later.

11. Turn the top clip (V2) back "on". One quick way to do this is to Control/click (or right/click with a two button mouse) over the top Timeline clip and choose Clip Enable from the drop down menu. The keyboard shortcut to turn a clip on or off is Control/B.

In the Canvas is the roughed in composite. The top clip is in focus with a blurred edge, the bottom clip is blurred altogether. Wherever the top image is masked out, you see the blurred bottom clip, giving the illusion of shallow focus, or soft edges of the frame.

12. Fine-tune the Mask Shape on the top clip, and its Mask Feather. On the bottom clip, fine-tune the amount of Gaussian Blur until the result is as you like it.

Before:

After: